Canadian singer/songwriter Tara MacLean has been an internationally renowned and award winning recording and touring artist for over 25 years. She’s written and recorded six solo albums and two with her band Shaye. A playwright, author, public speaker, poet and a mother, Tara resides in her home province of PEI and spends time on Salt Spring Island, BC.
She released her debut memoir, Song of the Sparrow, with HarperCollins on March 14th – a brutally honest look back at the obstacles she overcame over her life and lengthy musical career so far. Now she unveils the corresponding album, Sparrow, which serves as the soundtrack to the book.
Some artists move past songs and never look back. By contrast, Tara mines them for fresh inspiration to put her life in perspective and, more importantly, to find ways to inspire, help, and heal others. At the core, that’s the commonality between ten songs on Sparrow, a beautiful reimagining of songs drawn from MacLean’s extensive catalogue. But this is far more than a retrospective; put bluntly, it’s music as medicine. The LP finds Tara looking forward with optimism and dwelling on the transformative power of music rather than the pain and loss that inspired some of the songs she revisits.
“Lay Here in the Dark” is a track she hopes will offer solace to anyone who has experienced a struggle that requires a one day, one hour, one moment at a time approach to get through. A stripped-down offering featuring understated strings, delicate acoustic guitar and piano, “Lay Here In The Dark” is an earnest call to find gratitude and strength in the depths of pain that MacLean hopes will leave listeners with the sense that no matter how desperately isolated they may feel, they’re never alone.“I couldn’t write about the heights of forgiveness and the triumphs without writing about the depths of tragedy. I couldn’t let anything go. I had to tell the truth. A song,” she sums up, “In a way, is proof you survived.”
